Panasonic Partners to Deliver Tennis in 3D

Panasonic Corporation announced a joint partnership with the Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT), Orange and Eurosport, that will see the French Open Tennis, Roland Garros, transmitted live in high quality 3D. This will be the first multi-day sporting tournament held in Europe to be broadcast live in 3D.

According to the statement, Roland Garros, taking place May 23rd to June 6th 2010, is one of the most prestigious events in the sporting calendar and is the tennis grand slam with the widest European television audience. For the first time, people across Europe will be able to experience the tournament in 3D at selected points of sale. At the French Open tournament, all matches on the centre court, Court Philippe Chatrier, will be filmed and shown live in 3D.

The 3D coverage produced on-site at Roland Garros will be broadcast live via ADSL and fiber to Orange subscribers throughout France on a dedicated Orange TV channel. In addition thanks to the professional camcorders provided by Panasonic, Orange will be able to shoot behind the scenes 3D footage and create dedicated 3D reports on the field. A special 3D documentary will be produced after the tournament and broadcast on the Orange TV channel. Additionally, the entire tournament will be transmitted in 3D to a large range of retail stores in France.

Eurosport will receive the Orange 3D live signal and deliver 3D coverage of the event via satellite to more than 3,000 retail stores in up to 58 European territories excluding France on Panasonic’s VT20 3D Plasma TVs.